I just emerged, blinking, from the world of Skyrim, only to realise Sun Oracle has released the 11th version of Solaris (well, technically it's the 7th, but okay, we'll roll with it). I'll be honest and upfront about it: Solaris is totally out of my league, and as such, it's very hard for me to properly summarise what this release is all about, so I won't even try.

...but ultimately doomed I think, no matter what buzz word du jour it uses. I've so many customers jumping ship due astronomical license fee hikes, uncertain future and having bought expensive Sparc hardware three years ago, being expressly (see what I did there?) told it would run Solaris 11 when it came out only then for Oracle to turn around and tell them the hardware can be no older than two years for it to be supported.

I like Solaris, though it has a whole tone of baggage left over from 10 years ago (like root's default home directory being / and sh still being the default shell even though it's no longer a statically linked binary). I just wish Oracle hadn't gotten their grubby mits on it or that Sun had used a BSD license or something.

Now there are many issues about this S11 thing, but this comment calls for a quick fact check.

Root's home in S11 is /root/ (not that I'd get how does that define modernity of an OS) and while there still is /bin/sh (/bin and /sbin being links to /usr/{s,}bin/), it actually runs /usr/bin/ksh93 (and again not sure why would that necessarily be better) esp. it's not a big deal to choose shell of one's liking.

One of my complains about this release would be that development had a lot of the F/OSS vibe and was happening/focusing on engineers desktops. So in fact running it on SPARC for the first time in Solaris' history might see some shortcomings here and there.

Just installed it and yes, roots default directory is in /root and the new default shell is bash. Quite a departure I must say.

The reason why / is a bad idea these days for root's home directory is because it mixes root's user files and directories with those of the system. This wasn't an issue way back when you had one shell, one profile for that shell and no ssh (to name the first things I can think of off of the top of my head). Mow that you do, those config files and directories end up directly on the / filesystem making it harder to administer and even though you really should keep root usage to a minimum it's just not always the case. Hence why most admins create a /root directory first thing after an install of Sol8-9-10 and change root's home directory.

Are you seriously trying to say to me that sh is just as good as ksh or bash? Please. As for it running /usr/bin/ksh93 in sh mode, all the more reason not to bother with it.

Not even close to the truth. Solaris 11 is based on OpenSolaris. It has no more baggage. The root directory and the default shell have finally been updated as have many others. If you need to run Solaris 8, 9 or 10 software, you need a Solaris 8,9 or 10 zone, as you usually can't have the software running in the global zone due to the huge amount of changes.

The license fees are high for an OS alone, but considering the whole stack, they are quite reasonable. If you need an iPlanet, Oracle DB and a few other things, their license cost is 25% on Sun Hardware Solaris compared to others. The whole package is much cheaper on Solaris and Sun Hardware, even if the OS isn't.
If, on the other hand, you don't need the Oracle software stack, it's going to be cheaper to stay away from Oracle hardware and Solaris.
Most enterprises I worked with actually can't live without Oracle Virtual Directory, iPlanet, Weblogic, Oracle DB, and other Oracle components so it makes sense for them.
Right now only Oracle, IBM and Microsoft offer complete software stacks (LDAP, Messaging, SSO, IdM, DB, Web, etc.). Assuming you go the Java way it's Oracle and IBM. Oracle software at least implements industry standard protocols, unlike IBM. Try migrating from any Lotus or Tivoli product to something else. That's the reason for which businesses stay with Oracle. Their software implements the newest technologies, and is generally standards based or standards setting.
Businesses unfortunately only talk .NET and Java and don't care about Python and other stacks. I actually see Ruby and Python as real alternatives to .NET and Java, but the rest of the components of the stack are missing or inconsistent.